See play to win in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
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{
"ref": "1992 June 6, Clifton Brown, “Basketball: Blazers Beat Bulls in Overtime to Even Series”, in New York Times, retrieved 2012-07-29:",
"text": "\"[W]e just got totally outplayed. Instead of playing to win, we were playing not to lose.\"",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To play in an especially competitive, committed manner, focused intently on winning."
],
"id": "en-play_to_win-en-verb-xGS8TJS~",
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"(sports) To play in an especially competitive, committed manner, focused intently on winning."
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{
"_dis1": "61 39",
"word": "do whatever it takes"
},
{
"_dis1": "61 39",
"word": "pull out the stops"
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{
"ref": "1856, Charles Reade, chapter 24, in It Is Never Too Late to Mend:",
"text": "\"I play to win. I am playing for human lives. This, sir, is the torture, marks of which you have seen on the prisoners; but your inexperience will not detect at a glance all the diabolical ingenuity and cruelty that lurks in this piece of linen and these straps of leather.\"",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1988, David Mahoney (chairman, Norton Simon Inc.), quoted in The Executive's Book of Quotations (Oxford, 1994), p. 298",
"text": "\"The difference between playing to win and playing not to lose is the difference between the successful executive and the security-hunting, mediocre man."
},
{
"ref": "1997, William Bernhardt, Naked Justice, →ISBN, page 355:",
"text": "And Bullock could care less about the judge's threats. Like always, he was playing to win.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2009 December 16, “People Who Mattered: Rahm Emanuel”, in Time:",
"text": "Rahm Emanuel was certainly a surprising choice for chief of staff — he's a hard-cussing, old-school-campaign knife fighter and pragmatic congressional arm twister who plays to win.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To make a special, determined effort to achieve general success or a particular goal, in life, in one's career, in negotiation, etc."
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"(idiomatic, by extension) To make a special, determined effort to achieve general success or a particular goal, in life, in one's career, in negotiation, etc."
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"ref": "1992 June 6, Clifton Brown, “Basketball: Blazers Beat Bulls in Overtime to Even Series”, in New York Times, retrieved 2012-07-29:",
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"(sports) To play in an especially competitive, committed manner, focused intently on winning."
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"ref": "1856, Charles Reade, chapter 24, in It Is Never Too Late to Mend:",
"text": "\"I play to win. I am playing for human lives. This, sir, is the torture, marks of which you have seen on the prisoners; but your inexperience will not detect at a glance all the diabolical ingenuity and cruelty that lurks in this piece of linen and these straps of leather.\"",
"type": "quote"
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{
"ref": "1988, David Mahoney (chairman, Norton Simon Inc.), quoted in The Executive's Book of Quotations (Oxford, 1994), p. 298",
"text": "\"The difference between playing to win and playing not to lose is the difference between the successful executive and the security-hunting, mediocre man."
},
{
"ref": "1997, William Bernhardt, Naked Justice, →ISBN, page 355:",
"text": "And Bullock could care less about the judge's threats. Like always, he was playing to win.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2009 December 16, “People Who Mattered: Rahm Emanuel”, in Time:",
"text": "Rahm Emanuel was certainly a surprising choice for chief of staff — he's a hard-cussing, old-school-campaign knife fighter and pragmatic congressional arm twister who plays to win.",
"type": "quote"
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],
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"To make a special, determined effort to achieve general success or a particular goal, in life, in one's career, in negotiation, etc."
],
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"(idiomatic, by extension) To make a special, determined effort to achieve general success or a particular goal, in life, in one's career, in negotiation, etc."
],
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"synonyms": [
{
"word": "do whatever it takes"
},
{
"word": "pull out the stops"
}
],
"word": "play to win"
}
Download raw JSONL data for play to win meaning in English (3.5kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-21 using wiktextract (7c21d10 and f2e72e5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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